Chromosome-scale, single haploid assembly of achiote (Bixa orellana)

Bixa orellana, commonly known as achiote, is the domesticated species within the Bixa genus. It is a commercially important plant due to its high bixin content, primarily used as a pigment in the food industry. Achiote is a cross-pollinated, highly heterozygous species with a small genome size. This study aims to generate a de novo genome assembly of Bixa orellana L., which will be crucial for identifying the genes involved in bixin synthesis and its regulation. This assembly will offer valuable insights for future applications related to agronomical traits aimed at increasing bixin yield in achiote or different plant or microorganism systems, as well as for improving the genetic potential of achiote crops.

A de novo assembly of the genome of Bixa orellana L., accession PN4 was generated from ~145 x consensus coverage of PacBio long reads. This Hifiasm assembly included 10 chromosome-scale superscaffolds representing 96.4% of the assembly, for an overall genome size of 270 Mb. Illumina RNA-Seq libraries from different tissues sampled from the same cultivar were used to annotate the genome.